Some Mini Scandi Reviews II

Here are brief reviews of some of the Scandi books I've read this year. I'm including Vargas here as Iceland plays a significant role in her latest Adamsberg.

Karin Fossum – hellfire tr. Kari Dickson

Another bleak outing from Karin Fossum. It starts with the murder of a mother and child and the narrative subsequently alternates between events of several months leading up to the present day, and the present day investigation by series regular, Sejer. Fossum really knows how to break a reader's heart.





Leif G W Persson – The Dying Detective tr. Neil Smith

Shortlisted for the Petrona Award 2017 and winner of the CWA International Dagger 2017, there's not much to add to that. I loved this book. Borrowing from a tradition (I think) begun with Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time, our ailing detective Lars Martin Johansson is laid up and asked to investigate a cold case from his sick bed - incidentally a case messed up by one Evert Backstrom. He must find the killer of a little girl. As the statue of limitations has passed what can they do if they do find the murderer? One of the many questions pondered by Johansson.

Yrsa Sigurdardottir – Why Did You Lie? tr. Victoria Cribb

Also shortlisted for the Petrona Award 2017, Why Did You Lie? is a multi-person narrative – how do their stories overlap and who is behind the sinister events affecting each person? This is the sort of book that when you get to the conclusion you then have to go back to the beginning of the book to see how it's all been cleverly woven together. Some of the narratives are more compelling than others so overall it doesn’t quite live up to the heights of the Petrona Award winning The Silence of the Sea, which I loved.


Fred Vargas – A Climate of Fear tr. Sian Reynolds

This is the latest in the Commissaire Adamsberg series to reach us in English, and it was shortlisted for the CWA International Dagger 2017. This one is mostly set in Paris and surroundings with a significant thread playing out in Iceland which necessitates a visit by Adamsberg and some of his colleagues. Vargas weaves her usual fantastical tale this time revolving around Robespierre and the French Revolution/Reign of Terror. I found this topic interesting up to a point but the pace of the book sags in the middle after what seems like countless historical re-enactments and only springs back to life in the subsequent Icelandic section. Overall this was a bit of a disappointment compared to her usual 5-star outings. Nonetheless she's always worth a read but it's perhaps not the best one to start with.

Review: Without a Trace by Liza Marklund tr. Neil Smith

Without a Trace by Liza Marklund translated by Neil Smith, June 2015, 352 pages, Corgi, ISBN: 0552170968

Reviewed by Michelle Peckham.
(Read more of Michelle's reviews for Euro Crime here.)

This tenth book in the series that features the journalist Annika Bengtzon, focuses around the mystery behind the disappearances of two women. One is Nora, the wife of the ex-politician Ingemar Lerberg, who has just gone missing. The other is Viola Söderland, who went missing twenty years ago.

At the start of the book, Nora’s husband Ingemar, is being tortured rather horrifically and the perpetrators clearly want to know where Nora is. His almost lifeless body is found and reported anonymously, and Annika is sent to cover the story. Viola’s disappearance was covered by Annika’s boss: Anders Schyman, in a TV documentary for which he was given an award for Excellence in Journalism. Although the consensus was that Viola had been murdered, Anders found evidence that the billionairess, faced with some kind of financial crisis, had planned her disappearance very carefully. But on searching the web for information about Ingemar, a man whom Schyman knew and sometimes socialized with, he comes across a website calling itself the ‘Light of Truth’ where the author has started to call into question Schyman’s story about Viola, and appears to have started a personal attack on Schyman himself. These two threads form the main part of the story.

Meanwhile, there is the usual family background as part of the story. Annika is now living on Södermalm, a very cool and trendy part of Stockholm, with Jimmy Halenius (with whom she got together in the last book, while her ex-husband Thomas was kept hostage in Africa), her two kids, and his two. Thomas, also appears from time to time, and true to form, is feeling very sorry for himself after their break up, as well as very self conscious about the hand he lost while captive, which is now simply replaced with a hook. And there is the re-appearance of Nina, assigned to National Crime, and working with Annika’s long term inside contact ‘Q’. Nina and Annika also know each other from the past (as detailed in an earlier book). Nina is in charge of finding out who tortured Ingemar, and what has happened to Nora, and it’s she who starts to uncover Nora’s secret life, as we start to find out something about Viola’s through Annika.

There are also the interesting reflections on how journalism has changed, with there no longer being the print deadline, but with Annika videoing herself in front of the crime scene, editing some footage, and uploading the video as well as text on line, as soon as she is ready. But is Annika a little battle-weary? At one point she comments on how she could write several of the articles on line, without even leaving the office and going to see anyone, as the same types of stories resurface again and again. Annika also has an intern to look after, Valter Wennegren, son of the man who owns the paper, who turns out to be very useful. The ‘Light of Truth’ also highlights the ability of anyone to write anything they like online, and how destructive this can be especially when what appears to be a hot story, is taken up by other online media and goes into the mainstream. It’s interesting to see how Schyman, himself a veteran journalist, deals with the character assassination and how doubts raised about him and his integrity raised by an anonymous blogger start to take on a life of their own, as myths are circulated as truths.

WITHOUT A TRACE is a book with lots of bits and pieces, that just about hangs together as a whole. There is much musing on journalism, Annika’s role in it, her slightly jaded approach to it all, and yet still her engagement with it, and love of her job. The pressures of her new family and various uncertainties there also play an important part in the book, while the stories of Nora and Viola are almost plot devices to compare journalism then, and now. That is, one is rather less concerned as to what has happened to these two women, than how the stories are (or were) presented. I always enjoy Marklund’s books, and this is no exception, and while it didn’t have the taut drama of some of the previous books, it was a thought-provoking read.

Michelle Peckham, October 2015

Review: Blood on Snow by Jo Nesbo tr. Neil Smith

Blood on Snow by Jo Nesbo, tr. Neil Smith (April 2015, Harvill Secker, ISBN: 1846558603)

BLOOD ON SNOW, expertly translated by Neil Smith, is a shortish noir tale featuring Olav, a dyslexic hitman. Set in Oslo in 1977, Olav works for Hoffman, one of two powerful men, the other being the Fisherman, jostling to run the drugs trade. Olav has already killed several of the Fisherman's men and then he is given a special task by his boss – to kill his boss's wife. Once he claps eyes on her however, things are not going to go to plan for she is gorgeous and Olav is instantly smitten.

As usual with Nesbo, the plot mechanics are pitch perfect, where everything has a place and a later use – eg the whiskey bottle in PHANTOM. Olav, despite his career, is fairly likeable and is more intelligent than he might try to make you believe. Despite his reading handicap he has absorbed a lot of information from library books and yet is unable to drive a car without attracting attention from the police. Interspersed with the contemporary plot are details about Olav's childhood and also his killing career.

This is a brisk read with its snappy sentences and plentiful dialogue, and contains some black humour. It's also incredibly cinematic, with a great set piece in a crypt, and indeed the film rights have been bought by Warner Brothers. I'm intrigued as to what November's BLOOD ON SNOW 2: MIDNIGHT SUN will bring.

Petrona Award mention in The Long Shadow

I received a review copy of Liza Marklund's The Long Shadow yesterday and was very pleased to see inside, reference to the fact that Last Will won the Petrona Award. Both titles are translated by Neil Smith.

Work is quietly going on in the background regarding the 2014 Award with the judges reading the titles submitted so far. The list of potential entries for the 2014 Award can be found on this Petrona Award Eligibles post.

And the Winner Is...

Lots of people guessed correctly and the winner of the first Petrona award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year is Last Will by Liza Marklund, translated by Neil Smith. More photos to come but here is the "trophy". Liza also wins a ticket to CrimeFest 2014 and a guaranteed panel which it sounds like she'll be taking up!

Photo courtesy of Emma Buckley.

Retranslations, I'm picking up good vibrations..

There are several books being published with a new translation in the "Dagger year" ie June 2011 to May 2012 which are not eligible for consideration as they have already been published in English. So as not to lose them as it were, I'll be linking this post to the 2012 International Dagger eligibles list.

First up is Liza Marklund's The Bomber which, complete with "from the bestselling co-author of Postcard Killers" sticker will be published on 24 November by Corgi in a fresh translation by Neil Smith.

All she wants for Christmas...is to survive.

Seven days. Three killings. And one woman who knows too much...

Crime reporter Annika Bengtzon is woken by a phonecall in the early hours of a wintry December morning. An explosion has ripped apart the Olympic Stadium. And a victim has been blown to pieces.

As Annika delves into the details of the bombing and the background of the victim, there is a second explosion. These chilling crimes could be her biggest news story yet. When her police source reveals they are hot on the heels of the bomber, Annika is guaranteed an exclusive with her name on it.

But she is uncovering too much, and soon finds herself the target of a deranged serial killer...

I've already listened to this one in the original 2002 translation by Kajsa Von Hofsten (which sounded like an American translation) and enjoyed it very much: my review.

Next up, are Per Wahlöö's two books featuring Chief Inspector Jensen: Murder on the Thirty-First Floor and The Steel Spring which were published with a translation by Joan Tate in the 1960s. Sarah Death's new translations will be published by Vintage on 15 December.

In an unnamed country, in an unnamed year sometime in the future, Chief Inspector Jensen of the Sixteenth Division is called in after the publishers controlling the entire country's newspapers and magazines receive a threat to blow up their building, in retaliation for a murder they are accused of committing. The building is evacuated, but the bomb fails to explode and Jensen is given seven days in which to track down the letter writer. Jensen has never had a case he could not solve before, but as his investigation into the identity of the letter writer begins it soon becomes clear that the directors of the publishers have their own secrets, not least the identity of the 'Special Department' on the thirty first floor; the only department not permitted to be evacuated after the bomb threat.






Chief Inspector Jensen is a policeman in an unnamed European country where the government has criminalised being drunk, even in private at home, and where the city centres have been demolished to devote more space to gleaming new roads. Recovering in a hospital room abroad after a liver transplant, Jensen receives a note instructing him to return home immediately, but when he reaches the airport he discovers that all flights home have been cancelled and all communication from within his homeland has ceased. One of the last messages sent requested urgent medical help from abroad and when Jensen is piloted across the border it soon becomes clear that an epidemic has ravaged the country.


Look out for the Wahlöös in a W H Smith's Scandi promotion after Christmas.

Finally, in February, Liza Marklund's Vanished from Corgi, which is Neil Smith translation of the book published in 2004 as Paradise.